Vegas Video discussions from 2006 (Q3Q4)

[Jacob Eirckson]

well its not just vegas this is happening too, also photoshop, I tried the hardware accelerator and I shut all off and nothing changed even after restarting the computer. I think it has something to do with a font pushing the stuff off farther because now there is a bigger font used in some programs. Thanks for the reply though

[Dan Measel]

While mixing voice with background music and sound fx in my low budget movies I find it's difficult to get the right mix. For example, when I lay down some background music and set it to a level that sounds good the music may actually be too loud when rendered to DVD, drowning the voice. Likewise, I have trouble getting sound effects at the right audio level, for example, explosions and laser fire outside the cockpit.

Are there some basic guidlines for mixing the audio? For example with dialogue and background music are there standard levels that are fairly reliable (like the music should be at least 9db less than dialogue or something).

Also, if there are to be loud noises (explosion, horn honking, thunder, etc) I assume they need to Peak under 0db. But I would think you would want them to be significantly louder than the dialogue, which means you'd set the dialogue much lower, but my dialogue is usually around -3db straight off the tape.

Anyway, I know these are pretty dumb sounding questions and wasn't sure whether to put this in the Vegas forum (my NLE) or audio forum but figured if there was any advice it would be better to hear it about Vegas compatible plug-ins and such.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Alex Thames

I believe Vegas 7 utilizes Core 2 (and other dual cores) to their potential, but the new Intel quad core (QX6700) is essentially two Core 2 E6700 together. Will Vegas be able to use the four cores to their potential? Will Vegas be able to use AMD's 4x4 to its potential when it comes out?

I think even Vegas 6 can have the # of threads set. A minimum of one thread per core should do the trick. Now I don't expect that to be fully optimized for the CPU, but it should work better.

jason

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Ryan Laytart

Yeah, I do have that set right. It's just the matter of being able to skip, using the remote, from the last chapter of clip 1 to the first chapter of clip 2.

I once had to create a playlist when a movie I made had 3 different rendered mpgs. I added them to a playlist and then manually added chapters to the individual files. That seemed to work.

jason

[Jon Fairhurst]

Your dialog is definitely too loud. Normal speech should peak around -12db. Screams and whispers may vary. You may want to go through the dialog track syllable by syllable to balance the speech. Some consonants get dropped. Some words are overly loud. Get this right before adding anything else.

Effects can definitely peak at 0db. You can add compression to make explosions sound as loud as possible.

Mixing music is done to taste. If you wrote the music, keep it softer than you think it should be. ;)

EQ'ing the music around the dialog really helps. Feel free to manually drop the music as needed to keep the peaks from going over during effects and loud dialog. Same thing if the effects happen during dialog - pencil in a quick drop in volume as needed. Sacrifice everything before you sacrifice understandability.

If you're still unsure of your levels, rip the audio of a target DVD by connecting the audio outputs of a DVD player to your PC's audio inputs. Listen to the soundtrack and watch the levels.

Don't compress the overall result when going to DVD. (In essense, you've already compressed manually with the volume envelope.) Consider light overall compression for the web.

Here's a thread with lots of good tips on the subject:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=73903

[Derek Grimes]

Is there a software used for color correcting or are the tools in vegas adequate? Also, are there any books/video on the art of color correcting.

THanks

[Michael Wisniewski]

Check out the Sony Vegas color correction DVD by Glenn Chan and Douglas Spotted Eagle.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

There is also an excellent book on Digital Color Correction from Steve Hullfish, but it's not for Vegas.
To answer the first part of your question though, Vegas has excellent color correction tools. They're not DaVinci or Pablo, but they're very, very good.

[Jim Montgomery]

Try laying a 0 db tone at the beginning og your timeline. Set your the volume you like off of this tone and don't change it. Make an audio track at -6 db for your voice, -15 db for your sound effects and -18 db for your music.

You can then play with audio volume envelopes if you need to raise or lower a particular section in a particular track.

Jim

[Ian Slessor]

Hey all,

A quick question.

I'm using Vegas 6 w' Boris FX & Grafitti.

I would like to have a freeze frame "fragment" as if the wind is blowing it away. Starting from one side and dissolving across the frame.

I was thinking of using linear blur and a mask on a copy of the freeze frame.

However, can anybody direct me to a tutorial that could help or is there a quick and easy way of doing this effect in V6?

Thanks in advance.

sincerely,


ian

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Jim Montgomery

...Make an audio track at -6 db for your voice, -15 db for your sound effects and -18 db for your music...

This is a good starting point for a dialog-based scene with foley and underscore, but wouldn't work at all for an action piece.

Consider the car/motorcycle/truck chase scene in the second Matrix movie. The music peaks near 0db and rocks the house as the Trinity launches the bike. The sound effects are also up at 0db with the music backing off as needed. Both the effects and music back off to make room for the minimal dialog.

A lot depends on the sound designer and composer. A good composer will manage the dynamics and go so far as to place the notes between words, so almost no detailed mixing is required. But if you're using some droning stock music, mix away, Merril...

Fortunately, Vegas rocks for creating a final mix. It's the right tool for this critical job.

[Sean Seah]

Holy smokes.. it took me nearly 48hrs to render 110min of m2t. There were 13 clips, nested into a veg file with 13 vegs. Each clip had was no transistions. Applied correct correction-gain and 2 text media for each clips. Thaz it! I have been hearding about the slow speed but this is crazy.. Vegas 6 works faster.

The great thing about V7 is the m2t editing is pretty good. I'm running a 3.0GHz P4, 1.5Gb RAM. Pretty nice.. no more using Gearshift for V7. I guess u folks have had similar experience rite?

[Lee Kennedy]

Thanks Don! That works great

[Guy Bruner]

You might take a look at Satish Kumar's WAX. I believe it will do what you want.

[Dan Measel]

Thanks a lot guys. That's extremely helpful!